Eating Thanksgiving Dinner in a Fancy Restaurant

I was thankful for a great many things this Thanksgiving, including my boys, my husband, my dog, the health of all of our families, and the fact that we live a pretty great life. But a special note of gratitude went out to my 40 by 40 list for motivating me to do things that I want to do and might not have gotten around to doing otherwise, including...

#16 Eat Thanksgiving dinner in a fancy restaurant

Check!

We hosted our traditional pumpkin pancake brunch in the morning, which assuaged my guilt at choosing a fancy restaurant over my in-laws this year.

I went a fairly traditional route with the fancy restaurant. Kincaid's is exactly the type of place you would picture when you imagine eating Thanksgiving dinner out. No molecular gastronomy or nouveau cuisine, just a straight up turkey dinner.

It was fun. It honestly wasn't all that different from eating out any other day of the year except that it had maybe more of a festive feel. Of course I love being waited on and the food was great (even though I really don't like turkey much), but what I learned from the experience is that really we should go out and order fancy food, not turkey. In my mind, I wanted to go have the classic Thanksgiving meal prepared by a chef, but I think what I really want is to eat a fancy meal instead of having a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. I'll file that away for the next time I have the opportunity to dine out on Thanksgiving.

Ok, so now I'm at the halfway point: 20/40. It took me nearly 5.5 years to get here and now I'll finish the other half of the list in just 2.5 years. I can do this!

Movies!

I decided to show the boys Son-in-Law today because I remembered that it's a Thanksgiving movie AND it's one of the elite few films that I will purposely watch more than once. As a rule, I don't love seeing movies I've already seen. Even movies that I might really like, I don't often want to see again.

This has prompted me to make a list of this select group of films so that I can remember what I need to make them watch...as you will see, they are mostly random and obscure (and I'm sure many would argue that they aren't all very good), so I am worried that if I don't force my children to consume them, they will go through life without knowing they exist. That would be a shame.

Here goes...

Movies I'd Watch Repeatedly (excluding Muppets)

Hackers
Sneakers
Wonder Boys
Get Shorty
Long Kiss Goodnight
Heathers
Home for the Holidays
Midnight Madness
13 Going On 30
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Breakfast Club
Pump Up the Volume
Point Break
Son-in-Law

I'm sure that's not all-inclusive, but it's what I can think of right now. It's fairly obvious that many of those probably relate to key periods of my life more than having cinematic value, but that's ok. Also, obviously they are not all appropriate for 11 year olds, so I'll have to file several of them away for a few more years. But tonight...bring on Son-in-Law!

40 by 40 Progress Check

I thought it was a good time to give a progress report on my 40 by 40 list. I'm really excited because I think I'm going to cross several things off the list in the next few months!

Ok, so for the record, I've only crossed off 16 of my 40 so far and I have just over 2.5 years left. BUT, here's what's in the works:

#16 - Eat Thanksgiving dinner in a fancy restaurant. This one is happening this Thanksgiving! In my mind it was going to be a fancy restaurant out of town, but it's actually maybe more exciting to go to a local fancy restaurant because we can still do our family pumpkin pancake brunch and then hit the restaurant for dinner.

#9 - Pastry Bootcamp at the CIA is booked for February!

#13 - See the glaciers in Alaska and #20 Take a cruise...these two birds will be killed with one stone because I'm scoping an Alaskan cruise for our next family vacation. (pricier than I thought, but it sounds amazing)

#37 - See the Grand Canyon...I think I'm going to take a helicopter tour the next time we're in Vegas because I can't get excited about planning a whole trip around it. However, I've never been in a helicopter, so we can add that to the list of cool things I should have put on my 40 by 40 list but didn't, but did them anyway.

So you see, that's 5 more things in the next 4 months, which puts me at 21/40, which is at least more than halfway done, which seems slightly less overwhelming. I could knock out the ones that don't require travel or anything particularly difficult (e.g. Cook a lobster) but I'm sort of saving those I think so some of my list still seems easily achievable. Ah, psychology.